Stephen and I have been keeping a keen eye on the weather all week and when we realised it was going to be 23 degrees today, we started planning some outdoor food. We initially considered a barbecue but eventually settled on a picnic in the park: much less effort which would result in more time for sun worshiping. That dream was shattered pretty quickly when we woke up and it was raining and there was no sign of any sun.

Of course, having decided on a picnic in advance meant we had already started preparing the food and had in fact finished what was to be the main event: Shooter’s Sandwich. Having seen this fabulous looking specimen earlier in the week, I had been able to think about little else and I wasn’t about to let the lack of sun stand in the way. We therefore did what millions of Britons have been doing for years: we had a carpet picnic.

The sandwich was good, the mushroom mixture added an earthy flavour and the whole thing tasted really meaty with a gamey note. The bread had gone a little soggy though, it wasn’t a particularly brilliant loaf to start with and I think something like a sourdough would be better.

We also had a potato salad (new potatoes, dressed with oil, raspberry mustard, salt, pepper and spring onions) and a spinach, asparagus, blue cheese and walnut salad both of which worked well with the steak.

We also had some rose because, well, if you’re not having Pimms at a picnic then you have to have rose, right?

Wow, this looks so cool and very tasty. We actually managed to have the first barbie for 2010 today. Not too well planned, but served its purpose on the whole. Things were a bit touch and go and then the sun peeked through for a short while and we just about managed to get it fired up. We’d just sat down to eat and the skies opened up and are still going.
.-= Caramella Mou´s last blog ..Spanatchnik With Salmon =-.

It looks delicious! So do some of the previous posts that I have managed to miss being so busy on my cookery course! Apologies…I do not mean to neglect you! xxx
.-= The Curious Cat´s last blog ..A little time to write a bit more… =-.

Thanks everyone, we thought this was particularly good, am glad that that has come through in the post 🙂

Kerri found the recipe and I hadn’t seen it at all – I took the pictures and then was pleasantly surprised to see that they actually looked almost exactly the same as the pictures in the Guardian article! I guess there is only one way to make it really.

As for the pressing, Kerri said that it needed to be pressed under a heavy weight. So I went and fetched the Larousse, thinking that that would be heavy enough and plonked it on top of it. Then when I turned around again, Kerri had put the Le Creuset on top of it as well! Clearly my idea of “heavy” hadn’t been quite heavy enough.